Tip: Buckets of Authentic Assessments
Choices within "buckets" of lower-stakes, formative tasks and higher-stakes, summative tasks.
I first wrote about authentic assessment over a year ago, in response to moving to online, unproctored exams during the first semesters of the pandemic. My institution - and others - continues to struggle with assessing students remotely, and academic integrity issues continue to be a primary concern for instructors. Moving towards more authentic assessments - real-life, creative tasks - is one solution. It is also not a small change for many instructors. It’s not just changing test questions more frequently, it’s completely re-imagining what and how they are testing students.
Each discipline has its own best practices for alternative assessments. I use a variety of research paper alternatives in my English classes that are authentic tasks and encourage students to do original work, but these alternatives don’t necessarily work for all disciplines. What does work is offering choices: more low(er) stakes assignments and alternatives to traditional high-stakes assignments. I like the approach I read recently, shared by Robert Gibson, of putting tasks into different buckets. This approach offers choice, but also incorporates lower-stakes tasks (bucket 1) and higher-stakes tasks (bucket 2). The bucket one tasks are both lower in points and easier to complete than the bucket two tasks. Their value is formative, preparing students to tackle later tasks and asking the student to create something that will be of value to other students. Bucket two tasks are the course/unit summative tasks, higher-stakes but still creative.
Bucket one has a choice of two activities. Normally these are a) building a series of knowledge check questions that I can add to my assessment bank. I only use these for knowledge comprehension. They are required, but not graded; or b) using an annotation tool such as Hypothesis, annotate and add to my annotated course bibliography. I create a one-page Bib with all my course resources broken down into each module. This is in a PDF format that they add to. This bucket is worth 10-40 points depending on the course.
Bucket two has a choice of three activities. Normally these are either a) a 500-word paper that illustrates the basic concepts covered in the course; or b) a presentation using a medium of your choice that illustrates the concepts in the course (infographic, video, audio slide deck, etc.); or c) A self-directed presentation or project. This bucket is worth 25-75 points depending on the course.
This assessment approach plays to the students’ strength. If they feel they are better writers, they may opt for that option. If they feel they are better presenters, they may opt for that option. Given that they can pick the medium I am not limiting their creativity. If they prefer a self-directed activity, they may opt to design and develop something completely different, such as conducting an interview or developing a web site. They need my permission before proceeding with this option.
Robert Gibson, Emporia State University
I find that when I give choices for high-stakes, summative assessments, most students pick one of the more traditional options, and a few (never more than one-fourth in my experience) pick a more creative option. This distribution makes planning for enough time to grade the projects easier - I can be prepared to take a bit more time on evaluating the more creative projects if I am fairly confident that not every student will go in their own unique direction!
